Treetop FlyersMay 22, 2012 2KHz, London, England

Words by Sean Moeller, Illustration by Johnnie Cluney, Recording engineered by Ian Grimble and Richard Matthews at 2KHz at Church Studios, Crouch End, London

Perhaps it's just different over there in Britain. Perhaps there are afternoons when grown men just cut loose from work early, hit a pub before it's too damned jammed up with people - usually loud ones and revelers, celebrating having punched the clock goodbye for another day, before heading home to the whining kids and all of the other shit that they'd rather just put off - to talk about their depressions.

Now, we're not just talking about bitching and moaning, bellyaching about this or that, about getting passed over for a promotion or having the sewer line bust and back up into your basement. Who doesn't talk about those little miseries, ad nauseum? It's almost all we talk about, besides the winning/losing streaks and shortcomings of our athletic teams, the asses and racks on the various passersby or the way that it's been either abnormally hot or abnormally cold lately. What we're talking about discussing are those deeper concerns or the set-in worries that couldn't be characterized as little or inconsequential. These are the sorts of things that make people quit. They're wrestled with, but are so frightening and impenetrable that they are worshipped rather than spoken about. They're almost revered for their potency and ability to bring men and women down.

The Treetop Flyers make music that makes it feel like it could just be commonplace, sitting around with a tobacco pipe, near a burning fire, with an old chum or two and really cracking the tough nuts, digging into some of those riveting problems that get written off as proverbial or age-old. It's as if they've been placed under glass for safekeeping and written off as unsolvable. Lead singer, Reid Morrison sings so calmly and sweetly that we think he knows something that we don't, or he's getting closer to knowing something we don't because he's been putting in the time. We think that he's going to be able to tell us something soon, something that's going to bring us out of our own doldrums, when they really take hold.